Movie stars, NFL quarterbacks, CEOs, politicians – for whatever reason, there are jobs that attract the spotlight even if their success depends on others working behind the scenes. Port Townsend’s marine trades are no different. We have storied talents, worldwide experts in their field, big personalities who can hang a plank or field-strip a Detroit Diesel in a pitching sea with nothing but a Leatherman and a gasket kit.

Every trade also has its unsung heroes, and Boat Haven’s travel lift operators are the invisible force that makes the 300-plus jobs in the Boat Haven possible. Shipwrights Co-op member Martin Mills put it this way: “Those guys knock it out of the park, every day. No one says anything when things go well, but they’re the reason we’re all in business.”

If you’ve driven on Sims Way, you’ve driven past the travel lifts: towering three-sided steel cages on wheels, their slings designed to lift boats up to 130 feet and 300 tons out of the water and into our boatyard. “If boats can’t get into the yard, I can’t feed my family,” Mills continued.

For as invisible as the work is, lifting boats is a high-stakes job: 600,000 pounds of boat suspended midair and being driven around the boatyard is high stakes in its own right, but it’s not just the weight of the boat they are lifting, but the weight of the lives connected to it.

“We deal with people’s dreams, their toys and their livelihoods,” one lift operator remarked. In the spirit of the unsung hero, none of them wanted their names in the paper. Let the work speak for itself. “We take this really seriously.”

It’s rough work. Up and down the ladder countless times a day, on the knees dragging large wood blocking and placing it under the boats to be set down.

“‘Jack stand bites,’ that’s universal,” one offered to nods around the room. Jack stands are the two-part adjustable legs that keep boats upright during their time onshore. Assembling them has high odds for the steel parts pinching that webbing of skin between the thumb and forefinger. Shoulders and knees are longer-term concerns.

It’s rough on clothes, too. “In a year, I’ll go through three to four pairs of jeans, easily two pairs of boots.” They’re working too hard to tally the number of boats they block, but a FitBit calculated they walk 10-15 miles during a regular shift, longer when emergencies require them to work into the night. “My longest shift was 27 hours.” The boat was sinking and leaking diesel … had to be done. We’re the first line of defense.”

ON-THE-JOB TRAINING

There’s no training academy for lift operators; they learn it all on the job. They’re not boat designers, but have a deep knowledge of boats that is peculiar to their trade.

“If a boat’s been here before, I can pretty much tell you what the bottom looks like, where to put the straps.” They have their own language to describe boat hulls: round-belly, bat wing, full keel, banana keels. Banana keels? “You know, like an Ingrid.” More nods around the room. They know what hull materials and types of slime are prone to making straps slip. “Steel boats tend to have more angles, so they grab.”

Do they get nervous? “You can’t do this job without some nerves in the background … there’s 300 tons of boat over your head. You gotta respect that.”

Are they proud? When the whistle blows, do they think about the impact they’ve had in our community? “At the end of the day, I untie my boots, put them on the shelf, go home and go to sleep.” Unsung heroes. Thanks from the rest of us.

Jake Beattie is executive director of the Northwest Maritime Center in Port Townsend. He’s also a small-boat enthusiast and a founder of the Race to Alaska. His column on maritime concerns is published monthly in The Leader.